As everyone knows, Tony Dungy did not like Rex Ryan's pottymouthing-off on HBO's "Hard Knocks" (again, I'd point out that he should really just watch the censored version and then we could avoid this whole business).

When Ryan found out Dungy wasn't happy -- or that Dungy wouldn't hire him -- he said he'd call Dungy and talk with him. Dungy confirmed and discussed that call during and interview with Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth. (And yes: I'm sorry that everything in the world revolves around the Jets and the Vikings too. Nothing I can do to change that though.)

"We talked on the telephone and it was a good conversation," Dungy said. "I told him it wasn't anything personal on him -- they asked me my feelings on profanity and I'm not a big fan of it whether it comes from Rex Ryan or somebody else."

Michaels wanted to make sure that Dungy and Ryan were all good, and it turns out they most certainly are.

"Oh man, we were always okay," Dungy said, eliciting a snicker from Michaels and Collinsworth. "I'm just not okay with the profanity, especially as a leader -- leading a football team or anything, I just don't think it's necessary."

Collinsworth then got on board with Dungy, pointing out that the league kind of "put it on."

"It really was," Dungy replied. "We talked a lot about our image and our players and personal conduct and then to have something like that -- and I had a lot of Jets fans who love Rex Ryan said it was hard to watch, especially with their kids."

Collinsworth's follow-up involved him pointing out that he, many a time, had said something "insane" on the field that he's glad people never heard.

"Oh, we all have said things out there that we wish we could take back," Dungy replied. "That's one of the reasons I never allowed myself to be miked up."

When pressed about whether he "slipped up" out there, Dungy caved and admitted he said something dirty (I'm thinking "dagnabbut"?) once while coaching.

As you may or may not realize, Wednesday is "Hard Knocks" day -- which means, although Cowlishaw didn't say so specifically as far as I can tell, there's always the possibility of them announcing the contract mid-show. Which would be both awesome and embarrassing. Awesome in the sense that it would be groundbreaking television and it would absolutely encapsulate the PR-dream/nightmare combo that the Jets have become under Rex Ryan.

It would be embarrassing in the sense that Revis' contract and holdout status would be incredibly undermined -- not to diss HBO here, but if the public and/or the press get even remotely a whiff of the possibility that this was all a stunt to boost

Of course, that's completely null and void if Manish Mehta is correct :Contrary 2 internet rumor, #Jets & Revis have no plans 2have contract announcement on HBO this wk. Communication lines remain open tho (Aside: I swear I'd read that "internet rumor" was just reserved for disputing the bloggers' claims.)

There are some folks out there that believe Cowlishaw's Twitter account got hacked and -- for whatever reason, I have NO earthly idea -- the hacker decided to report about the Jets and Revis. After all, hackers steal bank account numbers, spam people and probably blog for a living ... not out-scoop New York-area reporters from Dallas.

“For me, I would just say I was trying to set a mentality,” Giants defensive coordinator Perry Fewell told the Post. “I’m going to be very aggressive. Yes, we want to play base, fundamental defense and we want to see people take on a block, shed a block, that kind of thing.”

“Sometimes you can cover up some ills by blitzing all the time,” he told the Post. “If you feel like you have nothing to lose, that’s fine. But if you go into the season feeling you have to rely on the blitz all the time, sooner or later it catches up with you. Now is the time when we can see if we can play base, fundamental football. And if we can’t, and do it well, the blitzing might disguise it for a little bit. But it’s not going to disguise it for long. People figure you out too much in this game. For us, it starts with stopping the run. If we can stop the run, then we can do a lot more things.”

I’m sure this is a trend that opposing quarterbacks who are just trying to get down their timing before retiring to the sidelines for the second half would like to see end. As would their coaches.

If you want to get a former NFL executive’s take on the Darrelle Revis-New York Jets contract impasse, check out what Andrew Brandt writes today for the National Football Post .

What I found interesting was when Brandt writes about the three-year, $45 million contract of Raiders CB Nnamdi Asomugha. This is the standard by which Revis wants to get paid - as in, he wants to be the highest-paid CB in the league - but as Brandt writes, it’s actually a two-year contract. In the third year, the Raiders must pay Asomugha the quarterback franchise tag number or he can walk. Why a quarterback instead of a cornerback? Because the quarterback tag number will be much higher than the cornerback tag number.

If Asomugha leaves Oakland, that means the cornerback market will reset once again because he’ll have another crack at a free agent contract with another team.

Brandt also writes about how the conclusion of the Revis saga will affect the rest of the Jets locker room.

An excerpt:

The Jets know that however they reward Revis will be precedent for their negotiations with Nick Mangold, David Harris and others. They have recently completed a deal for D’Brickashaw Ferguson with a “rolling guarantee” structure.

The Jets are willing to reward Revis at the top of the corner market – save the Raiders outlier deal with Asomugha -- but want to be consistent with their structure from the Ferguson deal, which requires that the player make it to February to receive the full benefit of his guaranteed money.

Teams have to stand for something in the way they operate and it is hard for a team to make exceptions for players – no matter what caliber of player – and look the rest of their players in the eye with different terms.

Revis, of course, won’t want a rolling guarantee. He’ll want a full guarantee. Brandt also argues that Revis’ team believes he’s on a different level of playing field anyway. He’s such a game-changer that he should be handled the way Minnesota handled Brett Favre (basically, let him do pretty much whatever he wants). Ferguson’s deal won’t mean much to Revis, because Revis is that much more important than Ferguson. That would be Revis' mindset, anyway.

So, how will this all play out? Brandt writes, “I would anticipate Revis back on the field – with a new deal -- in the first three weeks of the season. The better question will be what type of new deal. As with his rookie contract, I suspect it will contain some elements of the structure he wants and some that the Jets want. My strong sense, though, is that it will be a relatively short-term deal – two or three years – that is almost fully guaranteed and allow for another negotiation at that time.”

Since his interview on HBO’s Hard Knocks aired – an interview in which Antonio Cromartie struggled to remember his kids’ name (though he’s got, like, five of them who are between the ages of 2 and 3, so who could blame him?) – the Jets CB has become a bit of a laughingstock.

Need a good chuckle this morning? Check out the video below.

Well, Cromartie decided to fire back Thursday. He told the New York Post that HBO restaged the interview and the show’s director told him to pause longer between his kids’ name on the second take. So, does that the mean he doesn’t have a problem remembering his children’s names?

“Nah, I didn’t have trouble,” he told the paper. “I mean, they asked me to pause. I had nailed it the one time before, but they had to redo it and they just told me to pause between each one of [the names].”

I guess Cromartie didn’t realize that this was a TV SHOW where, even if it’s billed as so-called reality, the director and producers try to create the most-amount of drama by using this thing they call “editing.” I also love the fact that he seemed pretty proud that he “nailed it” on the first shoot (that's an unfortunate choice of words)for .

Yet, HBO insists the interview was done in one take and nothing on the show is manufactured.

From the story:Cromartie) also has been hit with five paternity suits in the past two years, and the Jets reportedly fronted him $500,000 of this season’s salary to deal with those legal issues.

Cromartie grew testy at the perception — now fuel-injected by “Hard Knocks” — that he can’t keep track of all his kids.

“So it’s not a point of me not knowing my kids’ [names],” he told The Post. “I know every single one of my kids. I know the age of every single one of my kids.”

Cromartie also said he isn’t bothered by the online mocking that resulted from what he describes as a re-shot scene.

“I can’t worry about what somebody else thinks,” Cromartie told The Post. “That’s not my responsibility. People got their own opinions. My thing is to be a father to my kids and be there for my kids as much as I can. I can’t worry about what somebody else [has] to say.”

All I know is this: the interview was the highlight of the second episode – especially because coach Rex Ryan let loose only two F-bombs – and when my wife walked by during that particular scene, she stopped in her tracks and said, “Wait, how many kids does that guy have?” We had to rewind it to count.

After a few days of bickering with each other through the media, Tony Dungy and Jets coach Rex Ryan have settled their differences with a phone call.

Dungy had criticized Ryan’s cursing nature – he did drop 10 F-bombs on the first episode of Hard Knocks - saying it was uncalled for and that he would never hire a coach that acted in such a manner. That drew the ire of Rex’s father, coaching legend Buddy Ryan, and Rex Ryan responded by saying that just because he cusses doesn’t mean he’s a bad person and just because somebody else doesn’t cuss, that doesn’t mean he’s a good person.

Today, they had a phone conversation (I assume there was little to no cursing involved). In fact, Dungy, former Indianapolis and Tampa Bay coach, accepted Ryan’s offer to attend an upcoming New York practice.

"He told me his position," Ryan told reporters, including the New York Daily News . "I definitely told him mine."

-The episode opens with audio from the Bruce Springsteen concert before the Meadowlands was demolished. I don’t know, I just don’t get the whole Springsteen thing. I have tons of friends who love him to death. He just doesn’t do it for me. But I admire the passion. Especially because at least three of those fans probably will never talk to me again for having written that.

-Uh-oh, I smell a preview of what’s to come. The Jets are talking about how bad the secondary – and the defense overall – has been during practice. I just wonder if that storyline will continue for the Giants game? Great line by defensive coordinator Mike Pettine: “If we were grading some guys just based on this practice, there’s a bunch of you who’d be (cut). I don’t know if we’d even spend the money on a plane ticket. We’d probably send you home on a bus.”

-RB Joe McKnight sweats a little bit when he’s running his sprints, eh? He’ll be sweating more if he doesn’t start performing better soon. Coaches yell at him, and he acts like a teenager who’s being lectured by his parents. Like he doesn’t give a crap.

-Mark Sanchez is complaining about having to pay 59 cents for extra Ranch dressing for breadsticks from Pizza Hut. “It’s like asking for ketchup at McDonald’s and them making you pay.” This, from a guy who gets $28 million guaranteed on his five-year contract. But then, they cut to Mark Brunell, he of the recent bankruptcy, and you say, “Well hell, maybe being cheap is the way to go.”

-FYI, how cool does Mark Brunell seem? I want him to be MY quarterback mentor.

-Never heard this saying before, but I guess it makes sense on some level. From Marty Schottenheimer, father of Jets offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer: “The one thing I always said about the quarterback. The guy who has a rookie performance at a certain level, if the next year you can get him to play at the same level, you’ve made progress.”

-You didn’t hear much about rookie CB Kyle Wilson, Revis’ replacement, during the Jets-Giants game. I’m interested to hear what the coaches thought of his performance. After all, Rex said Wilson had impressed him the most during practice.

-Holy crap, how many children does Antonio Cromartie have who are between the ages of 2 and 3? I think that’s, like, five of them. I think that’s eight children overall by, what, five different women? And it’s nothing to Cromartie. No shame. Which you kind of have to respect, I guess.

-Wow, Rex doesn’t drop an F-bomb until 26 minutes into the hour. That’s something, all right.

-Shake Weights > Snuggies. I think the Jets are mocking the Shake Weights, but hey, somebody must be buying those things.

-John Conner is supposedly a young Tony Richardson. The old Tony Richardson can’t like hearing that.

-Before the Giants game, Pettine is challenging his defense to play well without Revis. The first-team defense looked good in the first half, though they seemed to have some sympathy after Giants QB Eli Manning had his forehead sliced open.

-It’s crazy the Jets coaches had no idea who Giants WR Victor Cruz was before he killed them with three touchdowns. The sad thing, the coaches say, is that they’re going to have to play with some of those cornerbacks who got burned.

So, the answers to my previewing questions.

1) Only two. Which, frankly, is disappointing and unacceptable.

2) Revis’s name didn’t come up much, but it’s pretty clear the impact his absence had during the preseason game. And how much it could have during the season.

3) It sounds like the coaches are really high on Conner. As in, he might take Richardson’s job.

Overall, a good episode. So far, this is the best season of Hard Knocks we’ve seen in quite a while. Points off for the lack of F-bombs, but still, a strong episode.